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News

Awbrey named to SBC’s Dallas Team

May 19, 2025 By Illinois Baptist Staff

Victoria Awbrey

Victoria Awbrey returns to the Registration Committee for the 2025 Annual Meeting in June. She was one of 26 members appointed by SBC President Clint Pressley. The registration committee is called “to supervise the registration of messengers, to oversee the operations of the registration desk, and to rule upon any questions which may arise in […]

Hunt trial on hold for now

May 15, 2025 By Baptist Press

Stock photo

Nashville | In an order issued Monday, May 12, Judge William L. Campbell Jr. announced that the jury trial in the lawsuit brought by Johnny Hunt against the Southern Baptist Convention and others has been canceled. The trial was set to begin June 17. Campbell wrote that his decision was “due to the parties’ pending motions […]

‘To preserve unity’ S.C. megachurch withdraws

May 15, 2025 By Eric Reed

SBC 2025 Dallas

Newspring Church in South Carolina has chosen to leave the Southern Baptist Convention in the interest of “preserving unity in the Body of Christ” rather than face further scrutiny about a woman teaching pastor on its staff. The megachurch with 13 locations across the state was interviewed by the SBC Credentials Committee for its inclusion […]

Trump appoints pastors to key posts

May 12, 2025 By Illinois Baptist Staff

White House prayer team

Washington, DC  | Former Arkansas governor, presidential candidate, talk show host, and Baptist pastor Mike Huckabee was confirmed as U. S. Ambassador to Israel in April. He is one of several pastors named to high posts in the Trump Administration. Former pastor and staff member of Prestonwood Baptist Church in the Dallas Metroplex, Scott Turner, […]

Mohler questions ERLC’s ‘utility,’ draws pushback from Commission’s defenders

May 8, 2025 By David Roach

ERLC

Nashville, Tenn. | An SBC entity president has expressed “grave doubts” about the usefulness of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) in Southern Baptist life. The ERLC and its advocates followed those comments with a flurry of defense for the Convention’s public policy Commission. Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, said he […]

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Featured Columns

Gerald and Betty Steffy

We need more like them

Brent Cloyd

When Gerald and Betty Steffy came to Fairfield in August 1959, the couple were in their mid-twenties.  Gerald had just completed his theological training, and he was called to serve North Side Baptist Church. Gerald and Betty served churches in Illinois well into their eighties. Gerald died in September 2022, and Betty just a few […]

Ruth and Naomi

Ruth’s surrendered life

Meredith Flynn

Don’t plead with me to abandon you or to return and not follow you. For wherever you go, I will go, and wherever you live, I will live; your people will be my people, and your God will be my God” (Ruth 1:16). A few months after I moved to Illinois, I was assigned to […]

Watching for Baptist smoke

Eric Reed

While the world waited in St. Peter’s Square, watching a nondescript stove pipe protruding from the roof of the Vatican, I was recalling the smoke jokes at the church where I have served as interim pastor. And I’m thinking about our own Baptist conclave coming soon. In Rome, three rounds of black smoke from the […]

More Columns

9 tips for life on mission: Retired missionaries offer advice for next generation

Sue Sprenkle

The 20-something held up a fistful of letters. Inside the old-fashioned style of communication were words of encouragement and advice for the new International Mission Board missionary.  The letters reaffirmed words Zoe Hill heard countless times in person at First Baptist Church Columbia, Mississippi, from retired IMB missionaries Tom and Gloria Thurman:  1. The call […]

News

Canadian flag

Trinity becomes Canadian seminary

Lisa Misner

Deerfield | Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (TEDS) announced it is leaving the suburbs of Chicago to move to Canada where it will merge with that country’s largest Christian university, Trinity Western University (TWU). A statement posted to the school’s website on April 8 reads, “TEDS has entered into a formal commitment to take steps moving […]

Counselor suspended after state charges

Newton retires from Woodland

More News Stories

Mission

Metro East church plant hosts multiplication meeting

Metro East church plant hosts multiplication meeting

Ben Jones

Pastors and church leaders from around the Metro East area gathered in Collinsville May 17, 2023 for the second Multiply Illinois Hub. These quarterly regional events are designed to encourage and equip those interested in church multiplication. Heights Community Church, planted in 2016, hosted the gathering in their newly renovated home. With the St. Louis […]

Sallateeska baptism demonstrates SBC connections

A first-time ministry to migrant workers is very fruitful

More Mission Stories

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